go?”
“Yep. Let’s do this. It’s going to be fine.” He stroked my cheek and smiled. “Who can resist forgiving a face like this?”
Even Riley’s optimism started to crack when we pulled up to my parents’ house though. “Holy shit,” he said. “This is where you grew up?”
“Yes.” It was a big redbrick monstrosity, with white pillars and a fountain out front. I had never actually thought it was pretty, though as a kid I’d love the fountain. But by the time I was in middle school, I found it pretentious and embarrassing. Even more so now, seeing it through Riley’s eyes.
“Apparently the God gig is a good one,” Riley said, parking the car. “I admit, I’m feeling a little intimidated.”
“Don’t. It’s just a house that the church paid for. I’ve always thought it was on the verge of tacky.” I took a deep breath and stared at its stillness. “But I know I was really lucky to have material things as a kid. I always got what I wanted, within reason.” Which was probably part of the reason I was so aimless. I’d never really had to work all that hard at anything to have a comfortable life.
Just smile, and say your prayers in public. That’s all that had been expected of me.
“Now I’m really amazed that you agreed to stay at my place. Damn.” Riley shook his head.
“You have a better sense of family in that house than there is in this one,” I told him sincerely. “I like being there, with you and the boys.” Even though I didn’t belong, not really, I felt like I did.
“You ready to do this?” he asked me, taking the key out of the ignition.
“I guess I have to be.” What I really wanted to do was run away and never face the disappointment that was going to be on my parents’ faces.
Riley walked behind me, his boots creating a steady rhythm that soothed me. I was actually really relieved he was with me. I didn’t think that I would have the courage to go inside if he hadn’t held my hand, squeezing it in reassurance. The house was hushed and quiet and I figured my dad was in the library, reading before the social night ahead. The main hallway was two stories high and had more columns, with a winding staircase. I led Riley past the stairs to the wooden double doors to the library. They were open, and my dad was exactly where I had expected, on the sofa already wearing a suit, book in hand.
He looked up and saw me and his rigid expression showed his displeasure. But then astonishment replaced that as he took in Riley’s hand in mine. I knew the picture Riley made to a man like my father. Riley was wearing a Doors T-shirt, the leather straps of his bracelets wrapping around below his tattoos. The fact that he was twenty- five years old was evident in his jaw, the sun crinkles around his eyes, and a glance showed that he looked tense, edgy. His adorable dimples were nowhere in sight.
“Jessica. Come in. Introduce me to your friend.”
Dad sounded polite, in control. I wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. He sounded . . . remote. We went into the room and sat down on the opposite sofa from my father.
“Hi, Dad. This is Riley Mann.” I paused a heartbeat, then went for it. “My boyfriend.”
The manners evaporated. “Is this why you lied to us? Is this why you wanted to stay in Cincinnati for the summer, to be around some guy?”
Of course he would conclude that. I realized I was going to have a hard time convincing him otherwise. “No. Absolutely not. We weren’t even together yet.”
It was like I didn’t even speak. My father set his iced tea down carefully on the end table and eyed Riley. I didn’t like the way his eyes narrowed. He was a tall man, broad in the shoulders, graying at the temples. He was intimidating. I had always been a little afraid of him. Not because he’d ever hurt me in any way, but because he was imposing. As a little girl, he would always say he had God’s ear, that he was a shepherd leading God’s flock of sheep. Somehow I had decided that God’s ear was actually in my dad’s pocket, next to his wallet and the change that jangled when he put his hand in there and moved it around subconsciously. I had always been afraid it would fall out and I would see it, a torn-off celestial ear piece listening to all my words and thoughts like a big tattletaling megaphone to God.
“Are you having sexual intercourse with my daughter?” Dad asked Riley, bluntly and out of nowhere.
I uncrossed my leg and sat up straight. “Dad! You can’t ask him that.” I turned to Riley. “Don’t answer that!”
But Riley ignored me just like my father did. He met his hard stare with one of his own. “No, sir, I am not.”
I wasn’t sure how entirely accurate that was, considering we did dry hump on a regular basis, but I was just so appalled by the question that I wasn’t even sure what to say.
“But you want to.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.
Riley nodded. “Of course. Jessica is a beautiful woman and I care a great deal about her.”
Heat rushed to my cheeks. Did anyone notice that I was still in the room while they sat there and discussed me?
“Dad, my sex life is none of your business,” I told him firmly.
It was that point that my mother walked into the room. “What on earth?” she asked, coming to a complete stop in the doorway, her hand going to her throat. “Jessica, what sex life? What the hell is going on here? Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
Mom was swearing. And saying the word “sex” out loud. Now I really knew I was in trouble.
“No sex life,” I said firmly. “We are not having this conversation.”
“Who is this?” My mother eyed Riley like he was mold growing in the shower grout.
“This is her boyfriend, she says. This is why she lied to us, she clearly wanted to spend the summer with him.”
“That is not true,” I insisted, feeling this spiral out of control even more. I was trying to be honest for the first time in, oh, ever, and no one would listen to me. The irony was frustrating. “I lied to you because I didn’t want to come home for the summer and deal with having to do what you want me to do.”
My mother said, “What, like helping with Sunday school? You’d rather be getting drunk and dancing suggestively with random boys?”
Well, when she put it that way it didn’t sound very good. “No. I just want to be able to make my own choices. I’m not interested in the legacy of the church. I’m sorry, I know that hurts you, but I’m not going to marry one of your staff, Daddy. I can’t. I would be horrible as a preacher’s wife and the thought makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs.”
I hadn’t meant to get so specific. I had intended to just explain why I hadn’t come home, but I guess the truth was it was all interconnected. I couldn’t explain without being completely honest. “I don’t want to study theology and I don’t want to pretend to be someone I’m not when I’m with you.”
My mother made a sound of annoyance.
My father studied me. “Are you saying you’ve lost your faith entirely?”
“No.” I fingered my cross necklace. “I believe in God and I believe in Christian kindness. But I don’t believe in judging other people and I don’t believe that I’m a bad person because I do things you may not like.” I wasn’t a bad person. I really wasn’t, and I realized that maybe with the freedom to be myself, I would become an even better person. That I would discover my purpose, my passion.
“So basically you’d like a personalized Jessica Plan, with the rules changing with your mood? Whatever you like is okay morally?” Dad said. “Moral ambiguity is a slippery slope to Hell.”
Uh. No. I had firm beliefs and that sentence sounded super snarky. This conversation was not going to go in my favor. Though why I had thought it would was beyond me.
“I don’t understand why you couldn’t just come to us and say you didn’t want to come home,” my mother said, her bobbed hair not moving an inch even though she was shaking her head rapidly.
“Come on, if I had done that, you wouldn’t have let me stay in Cincinnati.”
Neither disputed that.
“Where are you staying?”
“I subletted an apartment.”
“So you’re not living with him?” my father asked, gesturing to Riley.
“His name is Riley,” I said pointedly, because I was super embarrassed by my dad’s pretentious treatment of him. “And no, technically I don’t live with him, but I spent a lot of time there. And yes, sometimes I spend the
